


Awakening

by How0_0



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Background story, since I forgot the accurate story of the outsider, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-11-27 04:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18189509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/How0_0/pseuds/How0_0
Summary: A young boy needs money, and when someone offers him some, he doesn't think about it as much as he probably should.He wakes up in a strange place with no people, no animals, and no light.--------The origin story of the outsider and how he ended up in the void. There might be more chapters later, but for now, it'll stand alone.Edit: There are now multiple chapters. I might write more, if my exams don't kill me.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I hope you'll enjoy this story.  
> It you do, please leave a kudos, it's a great motivation.  
> Have fun reading this <3

 

The first thing he noticed was the change in temperature. He couldn’t feel his fingers yet, but the cold atmosphere felt like a thousand tiny needles stabbing his skin, and when he finally forced his eyes open, he saw nothing but darkness. He shivered, and looked around. From where he lay, or at least he was still assuming that he was lying on something, there was nothing above him but pitch black nothingness. No stars, no moon, not even any trees nor buildings. 

 

He sat up, though every ache in his body advised him not to, and saw nothing. Nothing anywhere. The only thing he could found was a small island, where he was sitting, which looked like the sacrificial site. The only logical thing he could think of was that he had passed out from the fear, and was imagining everything he saw. Everywhere around the small platform he had awoken on, was people wearing cloaks and hoods standing in a circle, every one of them looking towards him. 

 

People might not have been the right word to use. They were in the shape of humans, and they moved a tiny bit every once in a while, just as humans do, but these shapes were definitely not flesh and blood. When he stood up and walked towards the nearest one, he saw that they were more like statues than people. They looked to be made of rock. Not multiple rocks, since it seemed like they’d grown out of the ground like that, and they were rough enough to make it seem like no one had polished them, or that whoever made the sculptures hadn’t put that much time into it. 

 

The figure closest to the small platform, a man standing at one end of it, was holding a knife in his hands, and was bend a little towards the platform, close to where his head would be if he lied down on it. That must’ve been the ritual leader. 

 

\--------

 

When he was still back in the world he knew, where he assumed he would go back to once he awoke from his blackout, he hadn’t been as happy as other people. His mother died in childbirth, as so many women did, and his father thought only of alcohol after his wife died. The boy himself was placed in an orphanage, which threw him out when he turned fifteen. Old enough to take care of himself, and not their problem anymore. 

 

With no education and no money, there weren’t many options but to beg for money. It wasn’t something with a lot of dignity in it, and he had been looking for another source of income for a while when some men approached him. They’d offered him money for conducting a few tests on him. Not anything life threatening, they’d told him, so he thanked them and said yes. 

 

They’d brought him to a giant tree, the biggest he’d ever seen, and told him that this was where the tests were to be conducted. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, or maybe he did and simply chose to ignore the nagging feeling of doing something insane. In any case, he still needed money, and on the journey to the tree, he had noticed one of the strange people’s wallet, which had been full to the brim with coins. If they had that kind of money simply in their wallets, then they must have more money locked away somewhere. Somewhere with easy access and few guards maybe. 

 

They told him to wait until they were ready for him, which seemed reasonable enough. What he didn’t know was that it took them about a week to finally unlock the door to his room again. The week hadn’t gone by easily, and when the first day was over, and he realised they weren’t coming back, he had been pounding and knocking on the door to get somebody’s attention. No one came, and no one spoke to him in an entire week. The only company was the few rats that went by in his room, and the only source of food was the single loaf of bread they’d given him when they first saw him. A bribe, which was incredibly useful now that they apparently had forgotten all about him. 

 

On the seventh day, when there was no fight left in him, they returned and opened the door. The sun blinded him, but he was too happy about being outside that he didn’t care. They took his arms and brought him to a big room. There was a table in the middle, sort of similar to the table at his old orphanage, and there was already a lot of people sitting around it. He was sat down in a chair, and they tied his hands and feet to the chair. With no way to escape, he’d panicked and yelled at them to let him go. He hadn’t gotten anything out of that other than a slap across his cheek and some cloth in his mouth. Muffled noises still escaped, but no one seemed to care, and if they did, no one chose to look at him. 

 

After only ten minutes, he stopped trying to get their attention, and focused entirely on the conversation they were having. They were speaking of the stars, of their position, and of some eclipse being in only a few days. Only a few days wasn’t enough to steal their gold and get out of there, but with the way they suddenly looked at him, it didn’t seem like he would get that opportunity. 

 

They all looked at him at the same time. Not like you look at someone you meet on the street, they had looked at him like he was a product or a tool they could use for whatever they were planning. 

 

Then they discussed something about the fish that were dying in masses. Nothing like that was ever an interest of his, but it still made him a bit weary that the fish were dying like that. With his little knowledge of fish and their habits, nothing told him that they were supposed to die like that. It didn’t seem natural. 

 

He must’ve had passed out because he woke up by the big tree he’d seen before. It really was huge, and it looked almost withered, like it was slowly dying. In his panic to sit up and get away he knocked his head into one of the trees lower branches. Someone laughed but he didn’t see who. Something wet dripped down his forehead, and he thought he’d gotten a cut from the branch, but when he looked up again he saw a man standing behind him and dripping water from a small vial on his head. 

 

It was first then that he noticed the chains around his hands and legs, and only then did the panic really set in. He wriggled around like a fish out of water, which must have looked hilarious to anyone who saw it, while he struggled to free himself from the chains. It was of no use, and before he knew it, another man walked towards him. His brown hair was sticking to his face, but the man moved it and took out a small pencil. The strange man coloured around his eyes, and when he was done, he left the boy alone. 

 

Some hours later, hours he’d spent trying to get out of the chains, a few people walked up to him and started taking his clothes of. This would have been crossing a lot of boundaries, but he was simply too exhausted to care. When they were done, they dressed him in a brown jacket and a pair of black pants. He hadn’t really cared about anything anymore, and only looked down once before forgetting about whatever clothes he was wearing. If these people really were insane, and wanted to kill him, who cared what clothing he wore.

 

They didn’t let him wait for long after that, and already after a few minutes, he was being dragged to a place he’d never seen before. A big stone table, more like a platform, was standing in the middle of the room, and a lot of people were standing in a circle around it. Too tired to care anymore, he’d let then put him on the table, and he found himself quite enjoying finally lying on something flat. The ground by the tree had been full of roots, and the room they’d put him in had a stamped ground floor, where rats and other animals had been digging around in the dirt. 

 

They said a bunch of words that he didn’t understand, and finally the man at the end of the table asked for a knife. The last thing he heard was chanting and the last thing he felt was a knife in his throat. 

 

\--------

 

Remembering what happened to him filled him with rage, and he started punching the rock figures. The pain in his hands was forgotten as the only thing running through his mind was thoughts of revenge. What he’d do to the people who killed him, how he’d hurt his father who abandoned him, and how he’d hurt everyone who ever got in his way.

 

\--------

 

Days went by on that small rock island seemingly floating in a sea of nothingness. Not much happened, but he’d forgotten some things he felt he should remember. Simple things like his favourite colour, and even his own name, had slipped his mind, and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t remember what it was. 

 

He didn’t get hungry, which was great news to him, as he’d almost always been hungry when he had been in the other world. Even if he did ever get hungry, he didn’t see any food, so eating wasn’t even an option for him. 

 

\--------

 

Weeks went by, weeks turned into months and months turned into years. Still stranded on that small island, he didn’t have anything to do but to keep watch of the time. Or, he tried to, at least. It was difficult to tell how much time had passed, since there was no sun he could count on, and nothing but his own mind to count the seconds with. If only he had a watch or a calendar, he’d know what time of the year it was. 

 

On day, he’d had enough. Not wanting to wait anymore, he jumped off the island. Thinking that anything would be better than just waiting around for something to happen, and not caring about what happened to him, he just went to the edge of the island and jumped into the void. 

 

\--------

 

A long time passed while he was still falling. It wasn’t comfortable, and he wanted it to end, but after some time he got used to the feeling of falling. He almost forgot that when you fall, you also land on something. 

 

Another island. Bigger than the first one, but not big enough to be the size of a house. He didn’t panic when he got closer and closer. He didn’t care if he was plummeting to his second death. Almost welcomed it. But he didn’t get that lucky. 

 

When he got so close to the island that he thought this would be his death for sure, something slowed him down. He was still falling, but when before he had been plummeting to the ground, he was now slowly floating toward the ground, at the speed of a feather or a piece of paper. Something inside him felt warm, and suddenly he was standing on the ground he’d been floating above just a second before. 

 

\--------

 

After learning that he could float and disappear only to reappear wherever he wanted, he thoroughly took advantage of it. Jumping from island to island, he laughed for the first time in years, and when he found out he could make other things appear as well. It was almost like he’d been blessed with magic powers. The only downside was that he was completely alone in his joy. 

 

No one around to share it with, not even an animal he could have as a pet. To be fair, it wasn’t much different from when he was alive, but he still wished that there could be some other living thing in that new world. 

 

\--------

 

He was sitting on an island on the outside of a clutter of other islands when he saw it for the first time. 

 

His feet were hanging off the island, and when he saw the gigantic being in the void, he almost fell off the island. The Void was what he’d chosen to call his new world, since everything but the islands just looked like a void of nothingness. 

 

The being was big. Bigger than any animal he’d ever seen before. It looked kind of like the big fish he’d heard some people talk about when he’d been alive. The giants of the sea, they’d called them, but a natural philosopher had named them “whales”. He never thought he’d actually get to see one, but there it was. Swimming along in the void as if it was water in the ocean. 

 

It didn’t pay him any attention. The big black eyes in the whale didn’t seem to look at anything, but that might just be because it was difficult to focus on anything in the void. He quickly appeared near it and tried to communicate with it. He tried talking to it first, but it didn’t seem to understand, so he tried waving his arms around in gestures he thought would be understood. 

 

When nothing happened, he gave up and went back to sitting on the edge of an island. 

 

Maybe spending the rest of his death in solitude was his fate. It wasn’t the worst way to spend eternity, but he still wished that he had somebody by his side. 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy in the void gets a companion. <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want the Outsider to be happy dammit,   
> hope you enjoy!   
> <3

Years and years went by without anything exciting happening. He could feel himself growing more and more bored. Nothing ever happened, and the one whale in the entire void didn’t even react to his presence. He’d tried communicating with it multiple times, but no matter what he tried, he couldn’t get any contact with it at all. In the long run, it all felt rather pointless. After all, if he was really going to be there for an eternity, he may as well have some fun with it.

 

So that’s what he did.

 

Using the same rock material as every other thing in the void was made of, he created gigantic mansions and castles. Big enough that he couldn’t walk through one building in only a day. It was the kind of houses he always dreamed of owning when he was still alive, and when he still had the kind of childish wonder that made him dream of a better future.

 

Now, however, the only time he truly felt happy was when he was floating in the air or jumping from platform to platform. The feeling of being free was something he’d never felt when he was alive, and being able to fly around and do whatever he wanted to do was like a dream come true. When he didn’t think of the part of him being sacrificed, it was kind of an upgrade from his previous life as a beggar on the streets.

 

When he was walking through one of his mansions one day, he was feeling more lonely than he usually did. It wasn’t like a nagging feeling deep in his stomach, like how people describe loneliness to other people. It was more like the knowledge that normal people had somebody to speak with, and he never did, and he never would get to again.

 

Since he found out that he could get things to appear by simply using his mind, he’d been trying to figure out if he could do other things. Maybe he could make people appear, just as the whale suddenly appeared in the void. Back then he hadn’t really done anything, and the whale still somehow got into the void, but maybe if he tried to do something with his newfound powers, he could get a companion to stay by his side.

 

A friend wouldn’t be too bad, but honestly, he would be happy if he could just see something living, even just a simple rat. Food and drink hadn’t been a problem for him since he got there, so he could only assume that it wouldn’t be a problem if anyone else ended up there.

 

\--------

 

Relaxing and focusing everything he had on one specific thing seemed to work wonders. It was how he’d gotten the buildings in the first place, and it was how he was planning on getting another being into the void with him.

 

He was currently sitting on a couch made of rocks, looking out on the whale swimming around in the void. It had become more bloody for every day it spent in the void. At first, it looked like freshly fallen snow, but bloody stains and cuts showed up every time he saw it again, which made it look almost as frightening as its dead eyes.

 

The couch wasn’t very comfortable, considering that it was made of rocks, that really wasn’t anything shocking, so he ended up just floating a few centimeters above it. Still sitting, though he was mostly sitting in the air now. The void seemed even more cold and empty when he was staring into it, but even the dreadful feeling in his stomach didn’t make him avert his eyes. Not that there was a lot of exciting things he could look at, but he could always make more sculpture if that was what he felt like doing.

 

He was thinking of animals, on this very usual day, and one animal in particular shone through the other thoughts.

 

When he was a young child, his father owned a big dog. He didn’t technically remember the dog, seeing as he was a baby when he was taken in by the orphanage, but he would always have a scar on his left leg to prove it. Apparently, the dog bit him only a few days after he was born, which only made his father more sure about his decision to send him away.

 

There was really no reason for him to know this, but every time be misbehaved, the owner of the orphanage told him stories of his terrible family, and how he’d amount to nothing, just as his parents did. They weren’t kind, at the orphanage, and even years later, years spent in the void, he still wanted to get some kind of revenge.

 

He didn’t know what the dog had looked like, but he filled his mind with the thought of it, and hoped that something would happen. Something did happen, but it wasn’t even close to what he was expecting.

 

\--------

 

His first impression of the puppy in front of him was that it looked like it belonged there. Its fur was dark brown, almost black, and its eyes was as black as the whale’s.

 

The second thing he noticed, was that it was very cute. He was expecting a big, frightening dog, like the ones he’d heard stories of when he was a child, but when this small puppy clumsily ran towards him, there wasn’t even the slightest look of hatred in its eyes. The only thing that dog radiated was pure happiness. Something that he hadn’t seen in years, if ever, and something he desperately needed in his life. Apologies, death.

 

He bowed down and picked it up, still not entirely believing that he’d actually succeeded, and the puppy was so small that it could sit in his palm. He suddenly felt all fluttery in his stomach, and his face showed a big grin.

 

\--------

 

Since that day, he didn’t go anywhere in the void without bringing his puppy with him. It grew, but it grew very slowly, and, thankfully, it didn’t need food or water.

 

They went for long walks through the void. He made sure that there was a road for them, and no matter how energetic his new puppy was, there would be no way that it would fall into the void. Not while he was still around. And it didn’t seem like he was going anywhere any time soon.


End file.
